From WIRED · Michaela Makusha · · 3m
AO3's shutdown splits fanfic writers and readers
When Archive of Our Own went offline, fans shared stories on Google Drives. Authors say it breaks the rules of fandom and puts their work at risk.
In brief
When Archive of Our Own went offline, fans shared stories on Google Drives. Authors say it breaks the rules of fandom and puts their work at risk. Archive of Our Own's security shutdown prompted readers to share fanfic on unauthorized platforms, angering authors who fear malware, AI scraping and loss of control over…
Archive of Our Own goes dark
On October twenty-ninth, Archive of Our Own, which hosts more than eighteen point eight million fan works, went offline due to a security incident. The site remained down for up to four weeks.
Fanfic author Avery's work appears online
Avery, a writer focused on the gay hockey romance Heated Rivalry, found her stories on mirror sites she had not posted them to. She emailed Squidgeworld and AO3.Life and had them removed.
Avery's security concerns
Avery worried about malware in shared drives. She says one bad actor could put malware in that drive, and she will never know if she has found every copy online.
“One bad actor could put malware in that drive.”
Readers create shared libraries
When AO3 went down, some fans started freaking out over the AO3 apocalypse. Within days, readers who had saved stories placed them onto shared libraries on Google Drives.
Archive Salvation project launches
The Archive Salvation Google Drive project, a collective of fan fiction downloaded from AO3, offered ways for authors to ask for their work to be removed. It was later hacked and became inaccessible.
Authors and readers clash
Some authors are unhappy with their works being distributed without permission, breaking fanfic norms. Readers have messaged Avery demanding to know where her fics are now available.
Avery on reader entitlement
Avery says AO3's breakdown has revealed entitlement among some readers. She says it has left a sour taste in her mouth and she just can't wait for AO3 to go back up.
“I just can't wait for AO3 to go back up so that people can go back to normal.”
Riley shares drive list, faces backlash
Riley, a writer with over ninety thousand followers, shared a Google doc cataloging fanfic drives on November second. Some people claimed it was a privacy violation and could put AO3 users at risk of doxing.
Ellipsus sees surge in sign-ups
Ellipsus, a collaborative writing platform with an anti-AI stance founded in two thousand twenty-two, saw new sign-ups up more than five hundred percent since the outage began.
Fanfic has gone mainstream
Fan fiction has broken containment and become mainstream through shows like Heated Rivalry and adaptations of former fan fictions such as Alchemised by SenLinYu, originally published on AO3.
Fandom's history of takedowns
In the nineteen-nineties and two thousands, cease-and-desist notices and takedown controversies on Fanfiction.net and LiveJournal led to AO3's founding. This shared history shapes how fans react to threats today.
The big picture
Archive of Our Own's security shutdown prompted readers to share fanfic on unauthorized platforms, angering authors who fear malware, AI scraping and loss of control over their work.
